Episode Review for Levarageland 2/3
It’s Christmas time, and every show must, once in its run it seems, offer up a festive themed episode. There have been many more misses than hits over the years, but Leverage’s efforts thankfully fall into the category of the latter as it sure doesn’t leave us wanting.
It’s an unseasonable warm Christmas and Parker (Beth Riesgraf) is not impressed. That all changes when she brings in a new client, a mall Santa who has been fired by his unscrupulous owner, and framed for being an alcoholic. This sets the team up in the mall with Eliot (Christian Kane) and Parker as Santa and his assistant. Eliot’s ‘baa humbug’ approach when matched with Parker’s childlike enthusiasm is one of the standout parts of the episode, and it is used to good effect. The pearl of the episode however is the appearance of Will Wheaton as the hacker Colin Mason aka ‘Chaos”. Chaos proceeds to romp his way through the episode stealing the show as he systematically tries to destroy the teams’ efforts to stop an ATM scam. Other standout moments are Nate (Timothy Hutton) and Sophie (Gina Bellman) playing drunken lovers brawling to distract a security guard, the Santa smackdown of Eliot vs the hired Santas and Hardison (Aldis Hodge) mourning the death of his beloved van at the hand of his nemesis.
For me this is a standout episode, perhaps my all time favourite Leverage episode, not only because of the appearance of Chaos, who is my favourite reoccurring character, but because of the obvious enjoyment the whole cast displayed. The joy on the faces of Eliot, Hardison and Parker as they received their presents for example, is one of the highlights of the entire show.
5 out of 5
Favourite Quote
Parker: Okay. Bad enough it's Christmas and there's no snow on the ground, but this is Santa we're talking about, okay? We can't turn away Santa!
Nate: You know that's not really Santa, right?
Parker: Obviously. Santa lives at the North Pole
